He smiled a little. “I’m fine. To be blunt, I’m in better condition than you are. I killed enough anthrophages that my Shadowmorph healed everything.” He tapped the damaged spots on his ballistic vest. Morelli had known just where to shoot. “You don’t have a Shadowmorph to heal you, so I’m glad you’re awake.”
“Yeah,” I said. I got to my feet, and this time I stayed there. “All right. A fifteen-mile hike.” Russell and Murdo stood, watching me. “We get to Grayhold, get back to Earth, you contact the Shadow Hunters, I call the Lord Inquisitor, and they go deal with Nicholas. I think we’ve got a plan.”
“Good,” said Murdo. “Time is going to be tight. We should set out at once.”
“Yeah,” I said, staring at him. Something shifted in my brain, like a puzzle missing only the final piece. “Rory.”
“Yes?” he said.
“Why is your left wrist on fire?”
Murdo sighed. “It’s not.”
“Come on, man,” said Russell. “Might as well do it now. She’s going to figure it out before much longer.”
I frowned. “Figure out what?”
“The High Queen said it wouldn’t work in the Shadowlands,” said Murdo, “and she was right.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
Murdo sighed again. “Easier to just show you.”
He slid the sword into a scabbard over his shoulder, reached for his left wrist, and grimaced. He tugged something, and suddenly he was holding a thick bracelet of silver links. It looked like a thick, fancy watch band, and I had seen an object like that before. It was called a Ghostwright Mask, and it projected a Mask spell that was undetectable through magic. Nathan Vander had one, and the paroled Archon Elf used it to change his real appearance to that of an unassuming middle-aged human shop teacher.
The last pieces clicked together in my mind.
Murdo had been wearing a Ghostwright Mask the entire time I had known him. Which meant that his appearance had been an illusion. Which meant that his identity had been a disguise. And that meant that Rory Murdo had never really existed.
And that meant he was really…
I figured it out. A half-second before the illusion dissolved, I figured it out, and my mouth fell open in astonishment.
Murdo’s appearance dissolved. Well, his appearance didn’t change that much. The Ghostwright Mask was a subtle thing. His height didn’t change, and his build only became a little slimmer. His face was leaner and sharper than the illusion, with hard cheekbones, eyes the color of expensive bookcases, and close-cropped brown hair. I knew that face. Sometimes I had dreams about it.
For the first time in nearly a hundred and sixty years, I looked at Riordan MacCormac. I had not seen his face in over a century and a half, but I had thought about him constantly, thought again and again about what I would say to him if I ever saw him again…
“Riordan,” I croaked.
Yeah. Eloquent.
He tried to smile. “Hello, Nadia.”
My first absurd thought was to wish that there had been time to fix my hair and put on nicer clothes.
My second thought was a wave of crushing guilt. I had said such horrible things to Riordan the last time we had spoken. I knew what would hurt him, and I had hammered those weak points without mercy. I had done it to protect him, to keep him away from me because of how dangerous I had become, but I had still said those awful things.
My third thought…
I burst out laughing.
Russell and Riordan shared a look.
“How?” I said. “How? I…I had no idea. No idea. You fooled me, and I’m not easy to fool. How?” I took a step forward, peering at him as if he might disappear. “I was starting to figure out you were a Shadow Hunter, what with healing bullet wounds and all, and I knew there was something strange about you. Hell, you told me yourself that you couldn’t tell me everything, but I trusted you anyway because you…you…”
I realized I was babbling out of sheer nervousness, and I couldn’t quite make myself stop.
Then I realized something else. Murdo – that is, to say, Riordan – had said the real reason he had infiltrated the Rebels had been to rescue a woman he loved. Nicholas had a hold over that woman, and…
My mouth went dry.
Well. Talk about missing the obvious.
“This,” said Riordan, lifting the thick bracelet. He tucked it away into a pouch on its belt. “You saw Mr. Vander’s Ghostwright Mask, and this one works identically.”
“Um,” I said. “Okay. How did you get that?”
“There was an incident in the ruins of Chicago last year,” said Riordan. “A passing helicopter caught a video of Nicholas Connor escaping from Chicago, and the High Queen came to the Family of the Shadow Hunters to give us a writ of execution for Connor’s death. Ten million dollars.”
“Lot of money,” I said.
“I didn’t want anything to do with it,” said Riordan.
“What changed your mind?”
Russell smiled. “I did.”
Riordan sighed. “Two things did. First, yes, Russell. A few days after you disappeared, Russell called me. He said that you were in trouble and needed help. I told him that I didn’t have any right to interfere in your affairs, that you didn’t want to see me any longer.” A spasm of pain went through me. “But he kept talking, and talking, and talking…”
“And talking,” said Russell with good cheer. “I’m really good at it.”
“Evidently, because I agreed to help,” said Riordan, “though I didn’t know where to start. Then the High Queen approached the Family, and I saw the video of Connor’s escape from Chicago. You were in it. You were wearing a mask and a pair of ski goggles, but I recognized you. I took the writ of execution for Connor, and the High Queen gave me a Ghostwright Mask so I could infiltrate the Rebels.”
“Then you infiltrated the Rebels and found me at that hotel in Denver when Nicholas summoned me for the Royal Bank job,” I said.
“No, the first thing I did when I joined the Rebels was to figure out where Connor would be, and then I shot him in the head,” said Riordan. “It was obvious he was the one holding together the Rebels’ alliance with the Knight of Venomhold. If he was dead, the alliance would fall apart, I would fulfill the writ of execution from the High Queen…and you would be safe from him.” He took a deep breath. “I tracked his movements, set up a sniper’s nest in advance, and shot him through the head from five hundred meters away.”
I snorted. “Bet that didn’t work.”
“It did not,” said Riordan. “He was back on his feet in about two minutes. The knight of the Dark Ones in his skull can heal nearly anything. I realized that if I was going to find a way to kill him, if I was going to keep my promise to Russell and help you, I needed to get closer to him.” He shrugged. “I worked my way into Connor’s inner circle. Then he sent me to meet you in Denver, and we’ve been traveling together ever since.”
I didn’t say anything for a while. I had a lot of emotions to work through.
“You knew,” I said to Russell at last.
“Yeah,” said Russell. “Riordan told me in Milwaukee when we were at the safe house for the Graysworn and Mr. Vander was teaching you those new spells. I wasn’t sure that we could trust Murdo, but once I knew that Murdo was really Riordan…”
I stared at Russell, and he shifted a little.
“I thought we said no more secrets,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Russell. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I really wanted to tell you, but Riordan made me promise not to. And I figured it wasn’t my secret to tell, you know? It was your business, not mine, yours and Riordan’s.”
“Okay,” I said. I couldn’t quite bring myself to look at Riordan. What I really wanted was to touch him, to see if his lips felt the same as I remembered…
“I can make it up to you,” said Russell. “One of Riordan’s other aliases is Malcolm Lock.”
“For God’s sake,” muttered Rior
dan.
“Malcolm…Lock?” I said, blinking. I started to ask if that was another name he had used to infiltrate the Rebels. How many Ghostwright Masks had the High Queen given him? Then it clicked. “Wait. He’s that writer you read all the time, right? The one who writes those historical novels about the Crusades, and…and…”
I trailed off again as I worked through that.
“You write books?” I said, baffled. “I had no idea.”
Riordan shrugged. “The work of the Family keeps me busy…but not year-round. I might have six to ten commissions from the Family a year, so I do a variety of things. I have some other businesses.”
“Like writing dozens of bestselling historical novels?” said Russell, cheerfully.
“Yes, that’s one of them,” said Riordan. He gave Russell an irritated look. “I didn’t intend for you to repeat that.”
Russell grinned back. “Hey, she’s my sister. And I didn’t tell her who you really were. I had to make it up to her somehow, right?”
“Okay, okay, whatever,” I said. “We have bigger problems than historical novels.” I looked at Riordan. “But why didn’t you tell me the truth? I mean…oh.” A wave of sadness went through me. “You thought I might have gone over to the Rebels and the Dark Ones cultists.”
I couldn’t blame him for that. It was a logical conclusion. He had seen me on video helping Nicholas. And Nicholas had invited me to join his side several times, most recently right before we left for Last Judge Mountain.
“No,” said Riordan. “I did wonder that, but I knew better about five minutes after meeting you in Denver.”
“How?”
He smiled. “Subtle clues. Like how you kept telling me that you hated Connor and wanted to kill him. Then we met with Connor’s circle near DC, and you basically threatened and bullied every one of them.”
“I don’t bully. I persuade forcefully,” I said. “You figured out that Morvilind was forcing me to work with Nicholas. Why didn’t you tell me who you really were?”
Riordan hesitated. “Because…I didn’t have any right to.”
I blinked. “That doesn’t make sense.”
Riordan shrugged. “You were right, you know.”
“About what?”
“That I do have a pattern,” said Riordan.
A stab of guilt went through me.
“Before you, I had been close to two other women, and they got killed,” said Riordan. “Maybe it wasn’t my fault like people keep telling me. But I still have some responsibility for it. And if the pattern was repeating with you…I couldn’t forgive myself for that.” He sighed. “When you told me to stay away, I wondered if you were right. Maybe it was for the best.”
The guilt worsened.
“I just said that,” I whispered, “so you wouldn’t get yourself hurt trying to help me.”
“But…I had to know if you were safe,” said Riordan. “I was sure Morvilind was going to get you killed the way he got my brother killed. And once I realized that Morvilind was forcing you to work with the Rebels, that he had made a deal with the damned Forerunner, I knew it. I had to make sure that you were safe, that Morvilind wasn’t going to get you killed.”
“I didn’t want you to get hurt!” I said, angry. “That’s why I said all those things to you! Not because they were true! I’m crazy and dangerous and unstable. I’m not in danger from you, you’re in danger from me.”
“You seem stable enough to me,” said Riordan.
I stared at him.
“Mostly stable,” he admitted.
“But you shouldn’t be here,” I said. “I broke up with you to keep you safe. You should have told me.”
“I came here to keep you safe,” said Riordan. “You…”
Russell was laughing.
I glared at him. “What the hell! This isn’t funny.”
“No,” said Russell. “Well, yes. It kind of is. You thought we kept secrets from each other, Nadia? You guys are much worse. Like, you’ve both been trying to hide the truth to protect each other. But didn’t you just give me this big speech about how we need to be honest and forgive each other?”
“Shut up,” I said.
“You know I’m right,” said Russell with perfect serenity.
“That’s why I told you to shut up,” I said. “It means you’re right and I have no answer to your argument, so I’m resorting to childish insults.”
I paced in a circle for a few steps, rubbed my face, and turned to face Riordan. I wanted to yell at him. At Russell.
Instead, I found myself smiling.
“I’m really glad to see you,” I said. “Seriously. I really, really am. Um. It all makes sense in hindsight now, you know? Why you took such good care of me. Because you did.” I swallowed. “I wouldn’t have made it out of Washington DC alive without your help. Or Lorenz might have gotten Russell.”
“I’m just relieved that you’re all right,” said Riordan. “Well. That you were all right.” He glanced around the bleak plains of the Shadowlands. “Or as well as you can be, given the circumstances.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Hey, how about we focus on getting out of here alive? Then we can talk about our feelings and stuff.”
“Sensible as always,” said Riordan. “All right.” He gestured to Russell, and he handed over that map. Riordan unfolded it on a flat stone, and I saw that it was a terrain map of Venomhold.
“You pulled that out of one of the trailers?” I said.
“Yeah,” said Russell. “I wonder where Nicholas got it.”
“He probably commissioned it himself,” said Riordan. “The Knight of Venomhold isn’t terribly interested in mapping her demesne, but if Connor is moving an army through Venomhold, he’ll need to know the landscape. The Knight’s citadel is there.” He tapped a spot on the mountains. “We’re right here.” He tapped another spot about eight miles to the east. Though I suppose directions were arbitrary here. “The border to Grayhold is about fourteen or fifteen miles that way. I suggest we get to Grayhold as quickly as possible. Once we’re in Jacob Temple’s demesne, you’ll be able to open a rift way, and we can get to Earth.”
“We had better get moving,” I said. “How long was I out?”
“About seven hours,” said Riordan.
“Jesus,” I muttered. That telepathic attack had hit me a lot harder than I thought.
Russell produced that elaborate mechanical pocket watch again. “It’s…uh, about 3 PM on July 3rd in New York.”
“Oh, man,” I said. “We had really better get moving.”
I felt a terrible weight of responsibility. Nicholas had the Sky Hammer nuclear bomb, and he was going to use it to kill a lot of people. And I had helped him to find it. Granted, I had been forced to do it, but I still wondered if I couldn’t have found a better way out of the whole mess. They say hindsight is perfect, but even with hindsight, everything else I might have tried could have ended in disaster.
“Yes,” said Riordan. “But we do have a backup if we fail. You remember that phone call I made in Reno?”
I thought back and nodded. “Those other friends of yours, yeah. The Shadow Hunters, I bet.”
“Yes,” said Riordan. “I told them I thought Connor and the Rebels might try something against the Skythrone. The Firstborn agreed to put a team on it. Nora and some others have been following the Skythrone on the last stage of the High Queen’s Royal Progress.”
“Nora?” I said, and then the memory clicked. She was another Shadow Hunter, a statuesque dark-skinned woman with an English accent who could probably bench-press me without even using her Shadowmorph. Oh, and she thought I was dangerous to Riordan, that I was going to get her into trouble.
Considering that we were standing in Venomhold, I couldn’t disagree.
“I remember her,” said Russell. “She was in Milwaukee for the Archon attack, right?”
“Right,” said Riordan. “She can handle herself.”
“But she doesn’t know about the Sky Ham
mer,” I said. “Nicholas could hide it anywhere…”
“He’ll have to detonate the weapon directly under the Skythrone,” said Riordan. “You’ve seen the Skythrone – you remember that big lump of crystal on the underside.” I nodded. “That’s the apex point of the spell that keeps the whole thing floating. The nuclear blast will have to be directly under that crystal to disrupt the spell. Otherwise, the Skythrone will keep flying.”
“At least we know where he’ll be,” I said. “That’s probably Nicholas’s entire plan. Wait until the High Queen arrives in Manhattan, then his Gatekeepers will open a bunch of rift ways and attack. While Homeland Security and the Elven nobles are dealing with that, Nicholas will sneak the bomb through another rift way, set the timer, and escape back to Venomhold. He’ll sacrifice his whole army to get at the High Queen, but he doesn’t care. Just more collateral damage for his glorious revolution.”
“Won’t the Sky Hammer fry if he brings it through the Shadowlands?” said Russell.
“Not if it’s powered off first,” said Riordan. “If all the electronics are shut down. And once the timer has two minutes left, nothing can stop the reaction.”
“Yeah,” I said, adjusting the straps of my backpack. I missed my coat already. Partly because I was cold, and partly because the extra padding had been comfortable against the straps. “We had better get going.”
Riordan nodded. “This way. Keep your eyes open. Connor and the Knight are moving their army through Venomhold, and we might run into roving creatures.”
We set off.
Chapter 3: Eternity
We made it about six and a half miles without a problem.
The Shadowlands is a weird and twisted place, and Venomhold even more so. The terrain changes quickly, from plain to forest and back again within the space of a mile. We walked through the bleak, lifeless plain, and then through a forest of leafless trees, their bark like obsidian. After that we passed through a marsh, making our way from grassy island to grassy island.
I remained vigilant, expecting to be attacked by creatures of the Shadowlands at any moment, but nothing moved in the desolate landscape save for us. Maybe Nicholas and the Knight of Venomhold had rounded up all the creatures and impressed them into their army. The thought of mobs of anthrophages and squadrons of cytospawn rampaging through New York was an unpleasant one. Especially since the city would be full to bursting with people come to witness the Royal Progress.
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